Life’s Better With a College Degree

Five out of the 10 happiest states in the nation are also in the top 10 for educational attainment. Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts all took top marks in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. They are also among the top 10 states that boast the highest percentages of population with a bachelor’s degree or higher. And the nation’s happiest state, Hawaii, isn’t struggling with educational attainment, either, ranked at No. 15 with nearly 30% of its population backed by four-year degrees.

Is it a coincidence? Bryan Cohen, author of The Post-College Guide to Happiness, thinks there’s a connection. Higher education gives people the opportunity to explore their passions, be they writing, engineering, or even magic, Cohen explains. Graduates can use their educational experience to pursue what they love to do. That’s why, Cohen says, “educational attainment can lead to some serious happiness.”

It’s true: college graduates will experience better job conditions, career fulfillment, and pay than their less-educated peers. Unemployment is lower for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, and grads enjoy higher pay. Individuals with enough money to make ends meet, like college grads with gainful employment, will be happier than people who are poor. That’s not a surprise to anyone. But the positive connection for college grads isn’t all about career and money, at least not directly.

From stronger marriages to longer lives, college graduates enjoy an overall higher quality of life. There are countless pieces of research that all point to the same conclusion: life as a college grad is just better.

Graduates Live Healthier, Longer Lives

You may not tune in to Dr. Oz this week to find out that college textbooks are the next great superfood, but research shows a college degree would be worthy of such hype, offering graduates the opportunity to experience a longer, healthier life.

A report from the Commission on Health indicates that those with more education are likely to live longer, experience better health outcomes, and practice healthy behaviors like exercise, avoiding smoking, and getting regular checkups.

According to data from the commission’s report, college graduates can expect to live at least five years longer than those who haven’t finished high school, especially men, who see a difference of 6.8 years between college grads and high school dropouts.

Graduates aren’t just living longer, either; health quality in those longer years is better, as well. Among all racial groups, college graduates are more likely to report their health as “very good” or “excellent” than any other level of education. This difference is most pronounced among Hispanic and white college graduates, who are, respectively, 43.1% and 42.7% more likely to report “very good” or better health than those with less than a high school diploma. There’s even a significant difference between whites with “some college” and an actual degree: 14.7%.

The commission’s report spells out the connection between education and health through three major pathways: health knowledge and behaviors, employment and income, and social and psychological factors. Degreed individuals have better health knowledge, literacy, and behaviors, so they are more likely to understand how nutrition, exercise, drugs, alcohol, and health and disease management can impact their lives. They also have better working conditions, resources, and income that allow them to experience better health, including less exposure to hazards, availability of insurance and sick leave, and better housing, nutrition, and stress outlets. Finally, those with a college degree have a higher sense of control, social standing, and support that can positively influence stress, health resources, and health related behaviors.

Women With Degrees Are Less Likely to Divorce

Economists from the Council on Contemporary Families crunched data from 1950 to 2008, and found that for women, a college education correlates with a higher likelihood of marriage and a falling rate of divorce. The report shows that at 40, college-educated white women are more likely to be married than any other group because of dropping divorce rates for college educated women. A Pew report also indicates that married adults with a college diploma are less likely to divorce than those without a degree.

According to the Council on Contemporary Families report, college-educated women are not only more likely to marry and stay married, they’re also more likely to report happiness in their marriage than any other group of women. And before you think it’s all about the financial security offered by a college degree, get this: college educated women reported happiness whatever the level of their family income, and they were also less likely to identify financial security as the main benefit of marriage.

Not everyone needs marriage to be happy, of course. Many never-marrieds enjoy their independence. Others are in happy, stable lifelong relationships but have no desire to wed. Marriage has not been proven to make individuals happier, but it does contribute to stability, offering a long-lasting “protection” against unhappiness.

Stronger Community Connections

College graduates benefit from and contribute to their communities. In addition to stronger marriages and better health, college graduates are more connected to their communities, with higher weekly church attendance and an increased likelihood of civic engagement. These activities are also linked to higher levels of educational attainment, creating a circular pattern in education and community involvement.

A survey from the Association of Religious Data Archives shows that college grads are the educational group that’s most likely to regularly attend weekly worship services: 46.3% of graduates attend, well over the average of 41.9%. But even some college or a technical degree correlates with religious attendance: 46.1% of individuals with this level of education attend on a regular basis. And frequent religious attendance is associated with higher GPAs, as adolescents who attend weekly have an average 2.9 GPA, over 2.6 for students who never attend.

The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement asserts that not only do higher levels of education translate into more civic engagement, civic engagement also promotes educational attainment.

Research profiled on PBS’s This Emotional Life indicates that community involvement contributes to more satisfaction in life. And people who attend worship services regularly are happier than those who don’t.

A Strong Future for Graduates

Better pay, better marriages, better health and communities. College graduates have good reason to be happy. And there’s more: economic conditions are poised to offer grads yet another reason to have a positive outlook on life.

Recent grads have had a bum deal. Promised years of higher earnings and yes, happiness, many aren’t finding that reality. Reports indicate that young college graduates are struggling to fulfill their dreams, find jobs, and achieve financial independence. They’re certainly not the picture of post-college happiness, but economic predictions suggest that future college grads won’t have the same problems.

Economic Recovery, Just in the Nick of Time

The American economy is in recovery, but with an unemployment rate still in the neighborhood of 8%, we’re far from out of the woods. And that’s exactly why today’s students should be excited about what the future has to offer. Yes, really.

With still more recovering to do, that means the best is yet to come, and the timing couldn’t be better for college grads of the near future, who will graduate in an increasingly positive economic environment. The Congressional Budget Office‘s economic outlook is especially bright for the next four years. Unemployment is poised to take a sharp drop down to 5.5% between 2015 and 2018, and GDP will jump during that time period as well: a 3.7% year-to-year change, much higher than 2013′s 1.4%.

The International Monetary Fund, or IMF, also points to 2018 as the potential turning point for world economic recovery. Conveniently, that’s just about when today’s high school seniors will graduate from college. Economic crisis in the eurozone, a slowdown in China, and debt problems plaguing the U.S. and Japan have taken their toll on the world economy, but IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard believes we’ll be in good shape in 2018 or shortly thereafter.

Political consultant Steve Parkhurst translates the recovery into terms students can appreciate: jobs and possibilities. “Good economic times always lead to those with capital taking a chance,” he says. That means students will find more jobs available from recovered businesses, or alternatively, the capital necessary to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.

Post-College Success and Happiness

Cohen says that the economy isn’t really the biggest concern for today’s college graduates, though. He explains that the economy will always have its ups and downs, citing rapidly changing technology as the major area of concern for students. The first to adopt innovations, like self-publishers, app developers, and crowdfunding gurus, have “made a killing,” and Cohen recommends that students keep their eyes peeled for new opportunities like these.

Whatever the economic conditions, Cohen urges students to understand that “happiness is like a muscle that must be exercised and strengthened,” cautioning them not to focus too much on money or moving up the corporate ladder, especially at the expense of relationships or exploring creativity.

Eric Chen, associate professor of business administration at the University of Saint Joseph, recommends that students position themselves correctly to take advantage of the developing economic recovery. Chen says that students should pursue credentials in fields that will be in demand, like accounting and energy. They should also become fluent in more than one language, particularly Chinese. “Students need to study things that will get them a job after they graduate,” says Chen.

Is a college degree the ticket to health, wealth, and happiness? Not for all. But if research and predictions for the future are any indication, college graduates are equipped with the potential to be among the happiest people in the world, and they can expect to remain so for the foreseeable future. What has your diploma done for you lately? As it turns out, quite a bit.

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This leveling of the education playing field has been good for both women and men, but while men still head to college in droves, over the past decade it has become clear that in some ways, it is now men who are being left behind in higher education. Nationwide, more women aspire to college, enroll in college, and stick around for graduation than men. The difference in numbers may not be monumental, but it is significant, and some worry that without a college education men may become less competitive in the job market.

What is driving men away from college, and how can they get back in the game? The answer isn’t simple, nor is it entirely understood just yet, but many are working on figuring out just how to bring men back into the fold and ensure that college is never again a prospect that favors one gender over another.

The Reversal of the Gender Gap

For most of higher education’s history, women were a rare sight among the student body, but not anymore. Since 2000, women have made up almost 60% of enrolled students at American colleges, an all-time high and an incredible shift from just 12.2% in 1947. Many experts believe this shift, one of the biggest among college demographics, has been driven by a growth of incentives and opportunities for women to complete college.

It’s important to note that this gender gap among college students isn’t universal. At most Ivy League schools, the mix is much closer to 50/50, and some top schools still enroll more men than women. This is especially true for schools with strong programs in areas like computer science and engineering, which tend to attract larger numbers of male applicants.

Some schools have made efforts to balance their student body by gender, but in some cases there are simply too many applicants from one gender or another to possibly achieve any real balance while still maintaining a high level of selectivity. And that may be one of the things at the heart of the issue of men falling behind in higher education: men simply aren’t applying. What’s more, even when men do enroll, they’re much less likely to finish school and to earn a degree than their female counterparts. It’s a change that’s extremely difficult to explain and remedy because so many factors — cultural, social, economic — come into play.

What’s Keeping Men from College?

Men have no fewer opportunities and motivations to go to college and earn a degree than they’ve had in the past, but statistics show that they’re quickly becoming outnumbered by women both in college enrollment and college graduation.

Interest in School

One of the simplest explanations may be that fewer men are interested in going to college than their female classmates. According to U.S. Department of Education information, men make up only 44% of college applicants. Colleges can’t accept students who don’t apply. But why do fewer men even bother applying to college in the first place? There are a couple of factors at play.

Part of the problem may lie in the critical years before college. Men are more likely to drop out of high school than women in nearly all states, though by varying degrees and with low-income and minority men much more likely to drop out than all other students. Even those who stay in school may not see college as an option. Male students are less likely to take AP courses and exams, which have long been used to earn college credit hours before enrolling in college.

While fewer men aspire to college than women, the numbers of men who want to go to college aren’t low by any means: 90% of men versus 96% of women. The problem may not be in aspiration but in how male students seek out information about college and when they choose to enroll. Male high school students are much less likely to look up information about colleges or to reach out to college officials for help and information, which could lead to many not understanding their options for college. Of those who do enroll, only two-thirds of men do so right after high school, and less than half chose a four-year school. Both of these factors have been shown to result in lower graduation rates.

Some research also suggests that men simply put less value on college than women do, questioning whether it’s necessary or whether the cost is worth the benefit. As a result, men are more likely to head directly into the workforce after high school graduation. Dr. Carlos Campo, president of Regent University, says that this may be driven in part by the economy, which has forced many men to get jobs to support themselves instead of heading to college. “Employers are increasingly providing workplace training, which supplants the need to go to college in many industries,” Campo says. This is especially true in fields that are traditionally male-dominated, like construction and manufacturing.

The Cost and Skill Gaps

Financial concerns may play a role in keeping men from college degrees in other ways, too. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth revealed that student loans, while helpful to both men and women, were likely to make men feel discouraged about their debt levels $2,000 sooner than women and to drop out of school, even when all other factors were accounted for. Why? Researchers believe that it’s because women tend to have fewer job prospects if they don’t have a college degree, with men better able to provide for themselves without a degree and the heavy debt that can come with it. Sadly, this financial advantage is short-lived; by midlife, men who stuck it out with their college studies earn an average of $20,000 more than college dropouts annually.

It’s not just money that drives men away from college, however, even if they decide to enroll. Some researchers have suggested that college, and education as a whole, is simply geared towards more typically feminine traits. Studies have shown that while boys perform better than their female peers on standardized tests, they get lower grades from their teachers, a disparity researchers have attributed to their classroom behavior. It turns out that teacher assessment counts a lot, even for students who don’t necessarily struggle with the material, and with courses at all levels requiring students to sit still and focus, excel at communication, and be emotionally sensitive — typically skills females are better at — male students may be at an intrinsic disadvantage. This small difference can add up, leading some students to feel frustrated, come to dislike school, and make them more motivated to drop out altogether.

Some researchers put the blame on male students, not their teachers, for this gap in educational achievement. Claudia Bachman and Thomas DiPrete’s research, cataloged in The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What it Means for American Schools, suggests that male students simply aren’t putting in the effort and staying in engaged in ways that would make them successful in school. They believe that schools need to raise expectations for male students, work at changing stereotypes that say education and good grades are important for boys, and do a better job of showing the pathways men have to a college degree and the careers it opens up.

Adaptability

Other theories take a different route, including one of the most well-known pieces on the topic, Hannah Rosin’s The End of Men. According to Rosin, men are falling behind because women are simply more adaptable, whether by nature or because of the flexibilities they’re allowed by cultural norms. This adaptability has made it easier for women to navigate to a rapidly changing economic situation. Men, she argues, are clinging to an older, outdated way of doing things that’s putting them behind in terms of college achievement and other measures of success. Rosin’s book has been controversial, but it raises some important issues about the roles we assign to men and women that may be critical parts of how students view themselves and their future potential.

The gaps between men and women with regard to participation in higher education aren’t even across the board. Certain groups have much higher levels of disparity between female and male attainment of higher education. Low-income, black, and Hispanic men are less likely to go to college and often much less likely to graduate than women from these same groups. For these men, trouble in education may start early with many attending schools with greater numbers of novice teachers, fewer classroom resources, and fewer college preparatory courses. Minority men are also much more likely to get suspended. Research shows that 59% of black males and 42% of Hispanic males report being suspended, compared with just 26% of white males.

Even those who are smart and stay out of trouble may simply not see college as an option. Campo believes that many minority men simply lack peers and mentors who will urge them to go to college, making it seem both less attainable and less commonplace to get a college degree. Even historically black colleges see incredible disparity among female and male enrollment, with some schools, like Clark Atlanta University having a student body that’s 71% female.

How Men Can Keep Up

While some may find the growing disparities between men and women in education troubling, the reality is that, generally speaking, men still have it pretty good. They still surpass women in earnings and political power, and that doesn’t appear to be changing radically anytime soon, though college could play a critical factor in that as the economy shifts. Even with rising tuition and competition for jobs, college is still a smart investment for most. The Pew Economic Mobility Project released just this year showed that a college degree still helps people find better jobs and earn more money. In fact, the value of a college degree hasn’t been affected all that much by the recession, even if media reports suggest otherwise. College is, and will likely remain, a solid investment.

So how can young men get to college and stick it out through graduation to reap benefits like lower unemployment and higher lifetime earnings? Here are some tips to get you started.

• Start early. For young men in high school, it’s never too soon to start thinking about college. Starting early will allow for more time to ensure your grades are solid, to research colleges, study for entrance exams, and to learn about opportunities for financial aid. The more you know, the more confident you’ll be in your decision to apply.
• Don’t assume college isn’t for you. Struggling with school? Don’t automatically assume college is out of reach. You still have time to work to improve your grades, and even if you’ve already graduated, you will likely be able to get into a community college where you can work at improving your performance and perhaps even apply to a four-year school later.
• Ask for help. Studies have shown that men are much less likely to seek out support from administrators and faculty both when choosing a college and while students. Don’t let this be you. There is no shame in asking for help or guidance if you need it, especially if it helps keep you in school and getting a return on your investment.
• Cater courses to your personal needs. These days, there are far more options for taking college courses than the traditional in-class lecture. If that doesn’t work for you, try online, hybrid, or hands-on work in laboratories and studios. You may just find that these help you stay engaged and actually make you want to go to class.
• Take advantage of assistance programs. There are dozens of programs that can help students be more successful in college, whether you’re a minority, are struggling financially, or are the first in your family to go to college. Finding others who are in the same position and getting guidance from older mentors can be invaluable.
• Keep your costs low. If money is a concern, and it usually is, it’s smart to keep college costs as low as possible. Campo advises that men commute to school on a bike or use public transportation. “Many young men get trapped by car payments, insurance, and other costs into working longer hours,” he says. “Their college studies offer suffer as it becomes harder to balance the two.” To avoid this, keep costs low so you can focus on school and getting your degree without extra debt hanging over your head.
• Find a mentor. Along that same line, even if you don’t take part in a school program, it can be incredibly beneficial to find a mentor in the field you want to work in. He or she can help you learn the ropes, network, and find motivation to stay in school.

While fewer men are heading to college than women, that doesn’t mean men should turn away from college as a way to prepare for a long and successful career. With the right help and support, men from all backgrounds can be successful in higher education, earn a degree, and get a job with room for advancement. Like anything worth having in life, however, getting there will take hard work, sacrifices, and a willingness to ask for help when you need it. The challenge will be well worth it when you look back and see all that you’ve accomplished.

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Nobody should expect to be able to learn all of the languages spoken throughout the world, nor even a small fraction of them. Sometimes having fluency in one foreign language is enough to prove to people how serious you are about effectively communicating. Below, we’ve compiled a brief list of languages that we feel could benefit you the most in today’s global world.

1. French

Despite the relative popularity of the French language among those who appreciate its romantic “flavor,” the language’s practical importance on the world stage still remains quite strong. In fact, French is the official language in over 29 countries throughout the world and is the official spoken language of the United Nations.

For people with an interest in traveling to locations such as the European Union (where 26% of the population speak French) or even Northern Africa, knowing French is a key way to get the most enjoyment out of your travels. From a career perspective, individuals who wish to work in diplomatic services, for example, may be required to be fluent in French before even applying.

Today, learning French doesn’t require the effort it did over the last few decades. With the prevalence of free online lessons and courses, such as this one offered by the BBC, anyone with the motivation and willingness to learn the language can do so at their leisure. Moreover, should you already be a native speaker of English or a Romance language, such as Spanish or Italian, learning French will be much easier than you think!

2. Mandarin Chinese

At the beginning of the 20th century, studying the Chinese language was often considered to be a rather impractical and esoteric pursuit, particularly if you happened to live anywhere in Europe or the United States. These days, the practical importance of learning the language, which is spoken and understood (in several dialects) by over one billion people, can’t be overstated.

Unlike Chinese written script, the Mandarin Chinese dialect, from a conversational perspective, is a good deal easier to learn. Mandarin Chinese grammar and sentence structure is somewhat less complicated when compared to Korean and Japanese. However, the major difficulties first time Mandarin speakers tend to encounter are the tones used to differentiate words with the same pronunciation (of which there are literally hundreds, if not thousands).

If you want a quick introduction to what learning Chinese might entail, take a look at this site for some great lessons on learning Chinese characters. While it is certainly possible to learn conversational Mandarin without knowing any characters at all, taking some time to familiarize yourself with Chinese script should ultimately help your fluency it out; it will also really enhance your understanding of the cultural background of native Mandarin speakers.

3. Korean

Physically located between two of East Asia’s most powerful nations, China and Japan, Korea has been influenced both culturally and linguistically by the two throughout history. Today, South Korea has grown to become a cultural and economic powerhouse in the region. Even the tremendous popularity of the recent “Gangnam Style” dance craze is enough to prove the country’s growing relevance on the world stage today.

To the untrained ear, the Korean language can sound quite similar to Japanese. However, what few realize is that up to 60% of the Korean vocabulary is based on Chinese (or Sino-Korean) words, due to the cultural influence China wielded over Korea for over a millenium. Native Korean words, which are still used today, can be quite difficult to memorize and pronounce, particularly when compared to their Chinese-based counterparts.

Learning Korean can be quite difficult from the perspective of grammar and the proper pronunciation of certain words that, like Chinese, rely on subtle shifts in intonation to distinguish meaning. Unlike Chinese, Korean uses a phonetic script, known as “hangeul” (developed by the ruler of 15th Century Korea, King Sejong), that is widely considered to be one of the most innovative and easy-to-learn alphabets in the world. The Korean Wiki Project hosts a great resource for learning hangeul, as well as several other useful resources to help you dive into learning the Korean language.

4. Arabic

As the world’s attention continues to focus on developments in the Middle East since the turn of the 21st century, more people are choosing to learn Arabic as a second language than ever before. Not only does acquiring a working knowledge of Arabic help to provide a deeper cultural awareness of the region, but it is also a rare skill that could mean great things for the learner’s future career prospects.

While many might tend to shy away from learning Arabic due to its seemingly complex linguistic and cultural nature, keep in mind that many European languages have borrowed from Arabic throughout history. For example, several English words, such as “coffee” and “algebra” are derived from Arabic. Moreover, the numeral system recognized by most, if not all, of the world is based almost entirely on the Arabic system.

To find out if learning Arabic might be a good language choice for you, take some time to go through a few lessons provided by Madinah Arabic. If it looks like something you might want to continue pursuing, the site also hosts paid services that you can take advantage of to deepen your skills.

5. Spanish

These days, more and more people are opting to learn Spanish, simply because it helps them to communicate more fluently with their friends, neighbors and colleagues. The United States is the home to a significant percentage of the world’s Spanish speakers, and every American could benefit from picking up a thing or two about the language. Moreover, opting to learn Spanish could help chip away at the xenophobia that continues to be directed towards Hispanic immigrants in the U.S.

Because Spanish is one the most popular languages to learn in the United States, finding free resources online or elsewhere for learning the language can be quite easy. LearnSpanish.com is an excellent resource for beginning, intermediate, or even advanced students of Spanish to learn the language online for free.

We hope you were able to pull out some valuable information from this brief list of five of the top languages to learn in today’s world. This list is by no means comprehensive, and if your goals and talents are better suited towards a language not mentioned on this list, then by all means, study the language that makes the best sense for you. The intellectual, cultural and social benefits of learning a foreign language cannot be stressed enough—and whether you choose to learn one of the languages mentioned above or something completely different, chances are you won’t regret your decision to pick up a new language.

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Hearing the same message over and over again about the dangers of “binge drinking” can start to sound empty, but the fact is, it’s a very real problem that remains on the rise. You needn’t look much further than the nightly news to find examples of binge drinking and all the dangers and misery they can bring to the college campuses in your own backyard.

And just so we know what we’re dealing with, binge drinking is defined as four drinks in two hours for a woman and five drinks in two hours for a man; both result in a .08 blood-alcohol-content (BAC) level. According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), 80% of college students admit to using alcohol, and of those, around 50% engaged in binge drinking in the last two weeks.

Binge drinking can have adverse consequences on more than just your academic performance; it can endanger you and the people around you. If you truly want to get the most out of college, it’s important to educate yourself on how to party responsibly.

Part I: College Drinking and Health

When it comes to college age binge drinking behavior, the problem isn’t always the alcohol itself, it’s the decision making when drinking too much. A blacked out or otherwise impaired person is much more prone to having accidents, acting aggressively or engaging in risky behavior. The following NIAA statistics relate to college students between the ages of 18 and 24.

Injury and death

• An estimated 1,825 students die yearly of unintended alcohol-related accidents, including motor vehicle accidents.
• Another 599,000 will be seriously injured.
• More than 150,000 students suffer drinking-related health problems.
• 1.2 to 1.5% of students attempt suicide on account of drinking or drug use.
• 54% of binge drinkers have experienced significant memory loss at least once in the last year.

Assaults and sexual assaults

• 400,000 students report engaging in unprotected sex while under the influence.
• Of those, 100,000 report being too intoxicated to remember giving consent.
• 696,000 students are assaulted by another student who’s been drinking.
• 97,000 students are the victims of alcohol related sexual assault or rape.

DUIs and Other Vehicular Offenses

• 3.36 million students report having driven under the influence.
• 30% of students who drank in the past year admitted to driving after drinking alcohol in the past 30 days.
• About one half of all fatal car crashes among 18- to 24-year-olds are alcohol related, many of which are college students.

There are a host of other factors to consider. Increased alcohol consumption can trigger aggression in susceptible students, which can lead to property damage, encounters with the police or even violence towards yourself or others. Studies also show that binge drinkers are much more likely than non-bingers to take other illicit drugs such as marijuana, amphetamines, ecstasy and cocaine due to their lowered inhibition.

Part II: College Drinking and Rape

There’s been a lot of attention in the media recently about the dangers of rape as related to drinking on the campus environment. Recent scandals at schools like Penn State, Notre Dame and the University of Montana have shined some much needed light on what has become a growing problem.

According to the Cal poly San Luis Obispo Health & Counseling Services, roughly 90% of all reported rapes and sexual assaults occurred when alcohol had been used by either the attacker or the victim; 55% of females and 75% of males involved in ‘acquaintance rape’ admitted to using alcohol prior to the incident. Most drinking-related sexual assault occur when both parties are drinking, and generally the perpetrator is known to the victim.

By now, the relationship between binge drinking and sexual assault is well known. To begin with, studies show that young people come to the drinking experience with the belief that it will make them more confident and more attractive. Furthermore, impaired thinking can quickly make for miscommunications between partygoers; the perpetrator might assume the victim is more interested than they really are. When an assault takes place, the alcohol distorts the assailant’s ability to recognize resistance and it diminishes the victim’s ability to react or resist.

It’s important to remember that sexual assault is a crime no matter the circumstances, and should always be treated as such, regardless of whether or not alcohol is involved.

Part III: College Drinking and Hazing

We’ve all seen movies that glorify the hazing found on college campuses. Recent evidence suggests, however, that the effects of too much alcohol-fueled hazing can be dangerous – even lethal. Hazing is defined as a way to initiate a new member into an established order by way of forcing them to engage in strenuous, humiliating or dangerous tasks. In a college setting, this typically means sports teams, fraternities or sororities.

According to the National Study of Student Hazing, roughly 55% of college students involved in said clubs, teams or organizations have experienced hazing. As it stands, hazing is seen as a normal part of campus culture. Some of the more outlandish hazing practices include isolation, humiliation, kidnapping, sleep deprivation and forced alcohol consumption. Roughly 36% of students say that they would never report an incident of hazing because, “There’s no one to tell.” Another 27% remain silent because they believe, “Adults won’t handle it right.” It seems clear that more needs to be done when it comes to educating incoming students on what’s acceptable and safe when it comes to hazing rituals.

Part IV: Prevention

Colleges continue to work hard to address the issues surrounding the binge drinking epidemic and hopefully implement some real, lasting changes. The most successful efforts at combating binge drinking will include a healthy mix of prevention, intervention and treatment targeting individuals, the student body as a whole and the larger community. Collegedrinkingprevention.org is a great resource for prevention strategies.

Keep Your Eye on the Prize

When it comes to avoiding the pitfalls of binge drinking in college, you are your very best advocate and ally. Remember what it was that brought you to the college in the first place: You’re looking to build a bright future for yourself. You need to be smart, to live above the influence. If you do, you’ll never have to worry about becoming just another statistic.

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Table of Contents

• United States
• United Kingdom
• Canada
• China
• Japan
• Australia
• What Students Can Do

Student loans make higher education an affordable option for individuals who might not otherwise afford a college degree. Unfortunately, graduates so often wind up trapped beneath an avalanche of debt, stacked up because they know a diploma increases their chances of employment. But with so many nations now experiencing a recession, what was once an advantage has now become quite the fiscal albatross for college and university students worldwide. Although student loans in America started in 1840, it was not until the past couple of decades when bloated interest rates and other predatory practices incited serious fiscal issues on the national level. Even if the start dates and policies differ, other nations seem to have experienced unfortunate increases over time as well.

United States

In the United States, the average tuition rates at public four-year institutions spiked an average of 15% over the past year. The average net price rose by 4.6%. At private, non-profit, four-year schools, the tuition increased by 9.7% and the net price 6.1%. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics noted that 65.6% of undergraduate students in the 2007-2008 school year — the most recent time frame for which numbers are available — received financial aid in some form.

Sources of aid: Of the aid available, 48.2% came from federal sources, with 48% from nonfederal. Most recipients took the money in the form of grants, with a rate of 51.7% – 27.6% federal, 38.5% nonfederal. Loans make up 38.7%, with 34.9% from federal sources and 14.8% from nonfederal. Additionally, 7.4% paid for their schooling through work study programs.

Average debt: The class of 2011 graduated with 66% hamstrung by an average student loan debt of $26,600 for both private and public four-year schools. As the Project on Student Debt notes, the unemployment rate for college graduates sank between 2010 and 2011, from 9.1% to 8.8%. A further 19.1% either worked part-time or quit searching for a new job, while 37.8% ended up in positions not requiring a degree at all.

Interest rates: Interest rates vary depending on the type of loan, and an individual’s total amount of debt accrued hinges largely on that. Regardless, the grim employment outlook only exacerbates the anxiety over paying off their debts – especially since so many recent graduates began their higher education pursuits before the economy collapsed. The stress led to movements like Occupy Student Debt and Trillion Dollar Day protesting unfair lending practices and limited economic opportunities. Some researchers even believe these factors might be leading to the decline of male students on college campuses.

Some current initiatives directly address these demands, providing some semblance of assistance for future students. President Obama’s “Income Based Repayment” plan, for example, goes into effect in July 2014 and will cap interest at 15% based on a graduate’s discretionary income. Anyone receiving a loan after this date will not pay more than 10%. Working as a teacher leads to loan relief or forgiveness in certain situations as well. In Texas, the $10,000 degree plan aims to deliver a full college experience without the fear of crushing financial burdens after graduation.

United Kingdom

Most of the available statistics on student debt issues in the U.K. only cover England and Wales, or England exclusively. Some British students graduate crushed beneath up to £40,000 from tuition, fees, and textbooks.

Average debt: The average student loan debt for new graduates hovered between £12,360 and £12,850 in the 2007-2008 school year. By 2012, it swelled to an estimated £26,000, though some posit it was “only” £16,141. What’s more, 93% of students receive some form of financial support, with single-parent and low-income households the most likely to require assistance – and to accrue worse debt in the process.

The cost of college:Four-year, full-time undergraduates studying in the U.K. pay an average of between £8,100 and £8,400 annually, depending on their fee waivers. Students with foundation degrees (roughly the equivalent of an associate’s degree in the United States) experience the highest unemployment rates, with only 30% finding a job in the six months or less following graduation. The general unemployment rate among British graduates was a startling 18.9% in 2011, down from 20.7% the previous year.

Even college graduates fortunate enough to find employment in the U.K. will earn an average of £15.18 an hour — hardly sufficient to cover living expenses and achingly high student debts. In response to such economic stressors, students have launched protests in 2010, 2011, and 2012 begging the government to address the mounting discrepancy between debt and employment opportunities.

Repayment plans:In response, the British government adjusted the repayment plan for federal loans. Students earning less than £15,795 annually will not be expected to start paying off their debts. Once they begin to bring in a salary higher than this, they pay off no more than 9% of their loans year. However, this only applies to money taken out prior to September 1, 2012. Any loans granted after this date will only be paid off once the graduate makes more than £21,000 yearly. Their monthly payoffs then scale along with their salaries, with interest rates of up to 3% applied based on the amount brought home.

Probably the most unfortunate side effect of the U.K. student debt crisis was the increased suicide rate amongst full-time enrollees. Between 2007 and 2011, it rose by a tragic 50%, with men more likely to commit suicide than women. Some of this might have to do with larger student populations overall, though experts believe fiscal fear and an uncertain future both contribute heavily to such instances.

Canada

Paying for college during and after classes ranks as the highest anxiety-inducing factor for Canadian students, with 27% reporting they feel “very stressed” over accruing debt. Another 32% admit that they will likely struggle to pay everything off following graduation, while 27% think they’ll probably break even. About 49% of college students in Canada receive some form of financial aid, and 58% of these will pay $20,000 or more; a further 21% must suffer debt of over $40,000. On average, they owe $27,000 after graduation.

Average debt: Four-year programs at Canadian colleges and universities run an average of $58,000, including tuition, fees, books, and room and board. Students pay average expenditures of $14,500 yearly, and semester-by-semester breakdowns run between $2,500 and $8,000. However, costs vary depending on the school’s location, offerings, and other factors. Anyone attending classes on the Atlantic side of the country can expect higher debt than their counterparts near the Pacific; a disconcerting 25% will likely wind up an additional $40,000 to pay off following graduation.

Unemployment rates:The employment rate for Canadians with bachelor’s degrees or higher sank from 75% to 73.7% between 2008 and 2011. Part of this had to do with the 10.7% increase in graduates. Positions could not open up at a pace fast enough to provide for every new worker entering the force.

Known as “Maple Spring,” more 300,000 Quebecoise college students (about three-quarters of the province’s total student population) and their supporters marched in the streets of Montreal, Victoriaville, and other cities protesting a reported 75% tuition hike (some sources say 80%). The 2012 demonstrations also involved a walk-out from classes and led to international headlines when they led to arrests for assaults and other instances.

Unlike their counterparts in the U.S. and U.K., Canadian college students have yet to receive any sort of settlement from policymakers. Montreal protests re-emerged in early 2013 as a response to Parti Quebecoise’s summit regarding tuition. As with Maple Spring, the anger quickly percolated into violence, and the police quickly declared the whole demonstration illegal.

China

Between 1996 and 2008, colleges and universities went from receiving 13.7% of their total funding from student tuition and fees to 33.7%, with the rest of its money coming from government sources. Enrollment increased as well, from 8.3% of the population attending higher education institutions in 1996 to 26.5% in 2010. Major discrepancies in ultimate value exist in relation to students’ original residences, with those hailing from urban areas receiving ¥10,138.

By contrast, their rural counterparts only get a value of about ¥8,464 out of their attendance. As tuition and fees increase, enrollment among rural students decreases. Although 58.2% of China’s population lives in such areas, only 19.2% of qualified college-aged individuals actually attended classes in 2004. In 1994, that number was 30%. And the painful financial struggles for rural families hoping to send their children to college continue into 2013, as they typically pay more in tuition and fees than those from urban areas.

Typical costs:Average tuition in China runs about ¥40,000 annually, though the average rural family only earns ¥3,000 within the same span of time. The number of college graduates, inclusive of all demographics, quadrupled over the past ten years. Unfortunately, the job market has yet to fully catch up to the massive influx of degree holders. Only 78% of graduates managed to find positions a year after finishing school — and these numbers include grad students, freelancers, and seasonal and temporary workers.

Average debt:In total, Chinese college graduates owe ¥8.1 billion in loan debts. It’s difficult to gauge just how much individual students themselves must pay out once they find a job. But with tuition as low as ¥5,000 annually for a general major degree, ¥6,000 for medical school, and ¥10,000 for the arts, they generally fare a little easier than American, British, and Canadian students, unless they come from rural families.

Japan

Between 2001 and 2011, the number of students applying for student loans in Japan leaped up 70%. But penalties and extensions are on the incline as well. There was a 50% increase in the number of penalties given to graduates between 2006 and 2010; extensions went from 58,000 to 91,400. All told, 80,000 required extensions because of inadequate employment, and a further 2,092 recent graduates needed welfare to survive.

Employment problems:Japan’s current economic recession left 60% of its graduating student population since 2009 either under- or unemployed. Problematic, considering the loan system “recycles” its money — the money former students pay in gets paid back out to incoming classes. And in 2010, ¥263 billion worth of payments were delayed, while applicants drew out over ¥1 trillion in loans. The average yearly tuition and fee costs at Japanese colleges ran ¥11,865 in 2010.

Australia

Debt by earnings:An estimated $4 billion out of the current $15 billion worth of outstanding student debt in Australia will ultimately not be paid off. Unlike most countries, student loans tie into the Consumer Price Index rather than fixed interest rates, though the amount paid off yearly varies based on a student’s income. On the lower end, those making $50,000 annually pay off 4%, while the $83,400 or more grouping pays 8%. The under-$45,000 range will not pay anything until they begin earning the minimum salary. In 2010, the CPI sat at around 3.5%.

Tuition in Australia averages out to around $7,692 annually. Overall unemployment is lower than it is in most nations experiencing a recession these days, sitting at 5.4%. However, this number does not take into consideration individuals who have given up on their job search. In 2008, 19% of the unemployed attained some level of college education, down from a startling 34.5% in 1992.

What Students Can Do

Exact numbers might differ from country to country, but the same patterns leading so many college graduates toward under- or unemployment while juggling financial aid debt remain consistent. They spent their entire lives learning that pursuing higher education opens up myriad opportunities in life, only to discover that it can come at an unexpectedly crushing cost. Fortunately, students can still empower themselves to pick the option that won’t mercilessly slaughter their bank accounts and credit come graduation.

• Understand the employment outlook of chosen career paths. Before committing to a specific loan, students must intently research their job prospects post-graduation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics or a trip to a career services department should help with this. Never take on needless debt if the resulting positions won’t yield enough money to pay it off.

• Research what’s happening on a national level. Especially when it comes to legislation dictating how students should or can pay off their loans following graduation. For example, deferrals or deletions benefiting teachers might pique the interest of some. Income adjustments impact most students with loan debt, so it behooves them to read up on the latest news and views.

• Never borrow more money than is necessary. It may be tempting to pull out a little extra, but that little extra turns into a lot extra thanks to interest. Most experts agree that the best amount is no more than what the colleges require for tuition and fees. If more is required, students might have to look at their employment options to supplement the loans.

• Lowest interest rate: No matter how wonderful an offer may seem, the most important number on the form will be the interest rate. Even if it means taking out a lower-cost loan, the lower risk and lower debt make the decision entirely worthwhile.

• Know the repayment plans. And know when the repayment plans start, most importantly. Late payments only mean penalties stack up on top of the interest. Stay in touch with lenders, too. They’ll provide insight into how to best pay them back and answer any questions that might pop up regarding the details.

Although predatory lending practices do require curtailing, there are a couple of measures students should consider before accepting financial aid. A little legislation and a lot of education will help ensure the debt issue alleviates over time — on personal and national scales alike.

The post Dollars and Sense: A Global Look at Student Debt appeared first on College Stats.org.

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Table of Contents

• Tipoff
• The Year of the MM
• Official Rulings
• Highlight Reel: Breakouts
• Highlight Reel: The Don’t-Call-Us-Mid-Majors
• Why It’s Time for a Change

Quick: name your favorite thing about March Madness. Buzzer beaters, come-from-behind wins, coaching drama, or office pool victories are all great choices. But if you answered “a little team nobody’s ever heard of beating a powerhouse,” go cut that net down; you won.

Mid-majors — those Bucknells, Creightons, and Murray States that field men’s college basketball teams in conferences other than the six well-knowns like the SEC and ACC— have been putting the madness in March for years, defying their low seeds and providing America with scores of underdogs to root for and pages of bracket busters to bank on. And it’s a good thing, too: imagine how boring the tournament would be if the higher seed always won. (Luckily the odds of that happening in a given year are 1 in 35,360,000,000.)

2013 has the potential to be the group’s biggest year yet, with mid-majors securing impressive seeds and knocking off perennial Sweet 16 entrants. We’re taking a look back at how mid-majors scrapped their way to being one of the most exciting features of sports.

Tipoff

What we think of as the modern version of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament began in 1985, when the field was expanded from 53 teams to 64. Mid-majors have been making noise in fits and starts ever since, with teams seeded 13th or lower having bested their opponents in the first or second round 47 times (not including 2013).

From 1986 to 1992, not a year went by that a 14-seed did not beat a 3 seed. From 1986 to 1993, only once, in 1990, did multiple low seeds fail to upend a major. (Had No. 16 Murray State been able to beat No. 1 Michigan State in overtime, the streak would have been uninterrupted.) But the next year, the first 15-seed broke through as the Richmond Spiders eliminated No. 2 Syracuse 73-69, something only six other teams seeded that highly have been able to do since. That year, 1991, teams with every seed number except 16 (no 16-seed has ever advanced past the first round) made it to the second round of 32 teams. The only other year that has happened: 2013.

The Year of the MM

So why is 2013 such a watershed moment for schools outside the major leagues? The tournament selection committee seems to have finally recognized that more mid-majors means more heart, more grit, more determination, and most of all, more exciting upsets. This year, five teams from the Mountain West Conference earned tournament slots, a league record, as did five from the Atlantic 10, both besting the SEC’s three bids and the ACC’s four, and tying the Big 12 and the Pac-12. In all, mid-majors received 11 at-large bids.

Not only did mid-majors get a lot of seats at the table this year, they got good seats. The winners of the Patriot League and Ohio Valley Conference earned 11 seeds, compared to the 12s the SEC and Pac-12 winners received. Atlantic 10 members St. Louis, VCU, and Butler nabbed No. 4, No. 5, and No. 6 spots, respectively, and Mountain Westers New Mexico and UNLV a No. 3 and a No. 5. And in a victory for mid-majors everywhere, Gonzaga was named a No. 1 seed, just the fourth time in 14 years a member of their ranks had done so.

And even without good seeds, mid-majors have made their presences known in 2013. No. 15 Florida Gulf Coast University made the Sweet 16, as did No. 13 La Salle. No. 9 Wichita State wasn’t content to stop at even the Elite 8, upsetting No. 2 Ohio State 70-66 to become the first team from the Missouri Valley Conference to make the Final Four since the Larry Bird-led Indiana State team in 1979.

Official Rulings

The first major NCAA decision that benefitted mid-majors came in 1975, when the tournament was expanded from just one team per conference to include “at-large” teams, for a total of 32 bids. (It would be another two years before the phrase “mid-major” came into common parlance, courtesy of Catholic University head coach Jack Kvancz.) For the 1980-1981 season, the NCAA expanded the field again to 48 and enacted the Rating Percentage Index (RPI) as a metric for determining who would receive these at-large spots based on a team’s win percentage, its opponents’ win percentages, and its opponents’ opponents’ win percentages.

Today there isn’t a towel boy on a college basketball team who’s unfamiliar with RPI. Since 1994, the metric by itself has accurately predicted 73% of teams in the tournament to within one spot of their actual seed. Although some maintain the RPI is outdated or ineffectual, the formula has been instrumental in assisting mid-majors’ rise to prominence, particularly since 2004. That year, the RPI was revised to weight road games more favorably, giving mid-majors — who are often forced to play as the away team in games against major conference squads — more credit for ramping up the difficulty level of their schedules.

In 2001, mid-majors got a bit of a pickup with the innovation of the “Opening Round” game, a play-in game for a spot in the tournament that was also considered part of the tournament itself. In 2011, that one game expanded to four games known as the “First Four,” giving smaller programs a bit of national exposure. In 2013, the ratings for these games were up 14% to nearly 4.5 million viewers. This year, little La Salle University parlayed its play-in game win to a berth in the Sweet 16.

Highlight Reel: Breakouts

There are two kinds of great mid-majors. The first kind is the guys who seemingly come out of nowhere to run right over one, two, or maybe even three or four teams in the tournament. The second kind is teams from schools whose football teams you won’t ever see on College Gameday but who, once March rolls around, always seem to be in the mix playing spoiler. They’re the majors of the mid-majors, if you will.

We’ll start with the first group. The latest ballers to find themselves among the ranks of mid-major breakouts are the Eagles of Florida Gulf Coast University, a school that incredibly is only 16 years old, meaning 57 schools have more NCAA tournament appearances to their names than FGCU has years under its belt. But its basketball team has been the hottest story of the games so far.

The team first dispatched no less than No. 2 Georgetown by 10 points and followed that up with an 81-71 rout of No. 7 San Diego State, thus becoming just the seventh 15-seed in the history of the tournament to earn a spot in the round of 32 and the first in the Sweet 16. To say they came out of nowhere belies their 26 regular-season wins, despite a tough non-conference schedule. Nevertheless, just 337 people out of more than 3 million Yahoo! Fantasy Sports Tourney Pick ‘Em participants picked the Eagles to go all the way.

No mention of mid-majors would be complete without the 2005-2006 George Mason Patriots. The Colonial Athletic Association team had never won a NCAA Tournament game when they squared off as the 11-seed against No. 6 Michigan State, the Patriots having snuck in as an at-large bid. A 75-65 win later and they had to face the defending champion North Carolina Tar Heels; they, too, succumbed to the Patriots, 65-60. At that point, college basketball fans really began to wonder just how far this little team could go.

Next came fellow mid-major Wichita State, itself a team fresh off a second-round win against No. 2 Tennessee, just its second tournament win (after its first-round victory over Seton Hall) in a quarter century. GMU didn’t blink, sending them home with a 63-55 drubbing. And then, the ultimate test: the top-seeded UConn Huskies, a team many saw as a safe choice to win the championship. In one of the best games of the decade, little GMU won by 2 in overtime. Although its Cinderella run came to an end in its Final Four matchup with Florida (which went on to win the tournament), the performance is still one of the best tournament runs by a mid-major ever.

Highlight Reel: The Don’t-Call-Us-Mid-Majors

If you went back to a time when college sports fans were unfamiliar with the Gonzaga Bulldogs, Full House would still be on the air. The team’s first March Madness appearance in 1995 was an unceremonious 87-63 beating by No. 3 Maryland. In 1999, they came back and lost to Connecticut in an Elite 8 match; they haven’t missed a tournament since, a streak bested by only Kansas, Duke, and Michigan State. By the end of the 2012, they had won 14 games and earned a reputation as a mid-major in name only. And, of course, the 2013 tournament saw them as a No. 1 seed for the first time in their history.

Another mid-major that’s been giving the lie to its label for years now is Butler University. Since 1997, the team has only missed the tournament six times. It was slow going for the Bulldogs in the late ’90s, as they couldn’t escape the first round. But in 2001, they upset Wake Forest as a No. 10 seed. Two years later they bumped off No. 4 Louisville and punched their ticket to the Sweet 16. In 2007, they edged out another No. 4, Maryland, this time as a 5-seed.

It was in 2010 that Butler arrived. One by one, the Bulldogs ticked off UTEP, Murray State, Syracuse, Kansas State, and Michigan State with hustle and suffocating defense, becoming the fourth team in tournament history to hold all of its first five opponents to under 60 points. The team came within one half-court shot of winning the national championship over Duke. And just to drive home the point that it (and mid-majors in general) were there to stay, Butler followed up its 2010 run with another trip to the title game in 2011, ultimately losing to Connecticut.

Why It’s Time for a Change

• What’s in a (conference) name?: Are we really to believe that only once Butler and Xavier — schools with eight Sweet Sixteen and two championship appearances between them in just the last 10 years — have left the Atlantic 10 for the new Big East, overnight they’ll have become “major” teams? Besides, conference realignments happen all the time; using them as a metric for assessing a team is like rating a stock based on the weather.
• The label is vague: Ask five people what or who exactly constitutes a mid-major and you’ll get five different responses. Is it teams from any conference outside the BCS, or from conferences with average athletic budgets under $20 million per school? Should winning teams like Gonzaga be considered somehow inferior to perpetual bottom-dwellers from the Big 12 or SEC? Comedy site The Onion’s 2010 article about “mid-major semi-upper-lower-middle-mid” teams was an apropos description of the silliness of the term.
• The NCAA doesn’t recognize the term: The folks who oversee the sports of 1,094 member colleges and universities don’t acknowledge a difference between the six BCS conferences and the 25 others, at least not officially. Of course, the BCS teams have gotten unofficial preference from the selection committee for years. Before the 2013 tournament, committee chairman Mike Bobinski felt compelled to tell the press he and his colleagues were not “in any way trying to send any message whatsoever” with the high number of mid-major invitations. We can assume that the unofficial message was that the mid-major label is now irrelevant.
• It’s an insult: Note the way coaches or players bristle at hearing themselves referred to as a mid-major: they see it as an affront. In 2008, when Yahoo! Sports affiliate Rivals.com tried to name Xavier University basketballer Drew Lavender the “Mid-Major Player of the Week,” the school refused the honor, insisting it wasn’t a mid-major. Xavier administrators were just saying what other teams outside the BCS had been saying for over a decade: don’t write us off as second-tier.

If there is one upside to the mid-major label, it’s that the subtle slight gives young players a chip on their shoulder, a reason to take the court with purpose and passion. And those are the players who continually bring us, the fans, to the edge of our seats and make great things happen in March.

The post Mid-Majors and March Madness: The Future of the Tournament appeared first on College Stats.org.

Table of Contents

• What the Scorecard Does Well
• It’s All About the Benjamins, Baby
• Questioning Career Info and Accuracy
• Room for Improvement
• Final Thoughts

Shortly after President Barack Obama’s administration unveiled the new College Scorecard following the 2013 State of the Union, the public began voicing their opinions on the interactive tool, which is designed to help families compare colleges based on where they “can get the most bang” for their educational buck.

Responses were mixed.

We decided to reach out to a few players in the collegiate world and have them try out the College Scorecard. They share what they loved, what they loathed, and what needs to be worked on.

What the Scorecard Does Well

The tool allows students to search for institutions based on degree/major, occupation, zip code, size, awards offered, state, campus setting, region, and distance education. Users can also search the school by name.

Most who reviewed the tool found it easy to use, including Andrew Wilkinson, executive director and cofounder of StudentDonate, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help students afford a higher education.

“It seems pretty comprehensive and certainly has some pretty advanced filtering options that will help students narrow down to schools that meet their criteria,” Wilkinson said.

Laura Pereyra, communications analyst for NerdScholar, a student consumer education website, said she found the options to search by major or career area of interest to be the most valuable.

“Students are making a huge investment by going to college, so choosing a college that will help them translate that into long lasting careers is hugely beneficial,” Pereyra said. “I used to be a first-generation college student myself, and the biggest issue I felt was accessing legitimate information that presented me with facts. Students are overloaded with information as it is and many first generation students have to sort through all that without guidance many of times. I think this tool is a very good start to help them make much more informed decisions about their higher education. It’s not perfect but it’s going to give them a good starting resource to look at the key components they should be considering when choosing a college.”

Brian Sajko, the dean of enrollment management at Prescott College, said the search by region option is most beneficial because “50% of students stay within 100 miles of home.”

Keyana Scales, director of undergraduate admissions for North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, a public historically black college with about 9,000 undergraduate enrollees, said the tool is useful in driving the conversation of choosing a school.

“The decision on where to apply is typically a student decision; where to attend becomes more of a family conversation,” Scales said. “I can certainly envision families using this tool to help drive a conversation about college options that best fit their needs and personal circumstances.”

Scales said the area of interest search option is helpful, especially for “students who have a definitive idea of major or career aspirations” because the feature helps to “identify schools that offer academic programs that are suited to the prospective student’s interest.”

It’s All About the Benjamins, Baby

The College Scorecard provides the following information for each institution: net price (what undergraduates pay after accounting for grants and scholarships), the graduation rate, the loan default rate, and the median borrowing amount. The tool also links to each school’s net price calculator. While cost is unarguably a big, if not the biggest factor in choosing a college, some believe the College Scorecard misses the mark by focusing so much on the price tag.

“Basically, it tries to force the student to ask certain questions about cost, which isn’t a bad thing but it tries to apply a one-size-fits-all mentality to college even though the categories are meant to express variety (size, type) and that is the polar opposite of what college is. College is about fit,” said Prescott College’s Sajko. Prescott College, a private, not-for-profit liberal arts college in Phoenix, has an undergraduate population of about 800 students.

Sajko said the manner in which some of the information is presented on the scorecard does not make sense and compared Prescott College to Princeton University, as an example.

“Basically, wealthy, well-educated students attend Princeton, and the school accepts only from this group who is predetermined to graduate – thus the high graduation rate. Prescott College accepts from a much wider pool and profile and ‘takes the risk’ to educate more of the populous so we are penalized by showing a low graduation rate,” he said. “Princeton has wealthy students attend where Prescott has many more Pell [Grant]-eligible students who need larger loans and invest even more, yet we have a relatively low default rate.”

Chris Cullen, managing director at Infinia Group and who previously served as chief marketing officer for The Johns Hopkins University, also took issue with the scorecard’s focus on cost.

“The College Scorecard seems to use cost as the only real differentiating metric,” he said. “There are other factors to consider too: academic rigor, social experience, prestigious reputation, availability of financial aid, extensiveness of the alumni network, etc. One cannot necessarily say that the local community college education provides more ‘value’ than an education from Harvard just because it costs less money.”

Questioning Career Info and Accuracy

With the amount of information available for each school within this tool, there will always be a question of accuracy. The scorecard uses institutional data from 2011. Some experts have argued that because the information is based on averages and medians that the borrowing and default figures are misleading.

Others think the criticisms of the scorecard putting so much emphasis on cost are off-center because the unfortunate reality is that most students don’t have the luxury of ignoring finances when considering colleges.

“Maintaining current and accurate information could present itself as a challenge. Failure to have accurate information could result in a student discontinuing their interest in a specific college or university,” Scales said. “However, I feel that the likelihood of this occurring is very small as I don’t think this particular tool was created with the intention on being the only source of college-specific information for prospective students and their families.”

The scorecard is also lacking when it comes to employment of graduates. Currently, the employment section directs users to ask their prospective institutions for information about jobs and earnings for its graduates, but it also says the U.S. Department of Education is working to provide information about average earnings of graduates.

Sajko said employment data and career outcomes would be extremely difficult to track, noting that he is in a job he never knew existed when he attended college.

A recent letter to the editor at The New York Times from Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust, whose first job after graduating college was a low-paying position with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, suggested that graduate salaries aren’t a good indicator of an institution’s quality because some graduates base their career success on personal satisfaction, not salary.

Room for Improvement

User feedback and response is going to be a necessity in improving the tool as well as pointing out areas in which to improve upon.

• Wilkinson suggested the scorecard add a peer review section, similar to the feature on Yelp.
• When searching by degree and major, the list of options are in some sort of a quasi-alphabetical order. Simplicity is better, so full alphabetical order would be best.
• Scales mentioned she would like to see direct links to the institution’s websites so that students can explore top college choices in greater detail.
• Pereyra said the interface’s design could be simplified and suggested moving search criteria to the left-hand side displayed vertically with its corresponding categories placed horizontally. “I know that they tried to make it more interactive, but I think less is more,” she said. “Kids are often intimidated when they have too many options.”
• Pereyra also suggested the tool provide students the ability to compare schools side-by-side. Presently, students have to look at their options one at a time.
• Sajko said it would be helpful to include narratives that explain each college. “[The scorecard should] really let each college explain these categories rather than setting up yet another reporting structure which the government must now run,” he said.
• When searching by occupation, the results show institutions that don’t clearly define how they were yielded. In other words, if students search by occupation for public relations specialists, they are given a list of schools – but are these schools that offer degrees in this occupation, schools that graduate a significant amount of public relations specialists, schools that are well-known for public relations specialists, etc.? These questions can easily be answered by including a paragraph explaining the criteria for how the institutions are selected.
• Cullen emphasized the need for transparency and accountability, but said the college scorecard does not evaluate colleges in the same way that colleges as a group would evaluate each other. “The descriptors are quite vague. For example: city, urban, or rural. The results that are pulled up tend to include 25 schools that I’ve never heard of before, and I’ve been working in the higher education field for quite some time,” Cullen said. “The list the College Scorecard pulls up is a lot like looking at the yellow pages, and additional follow up would be needed by a user to learn more about what the experts say about these schools.”

Final Thoughts

Reviewing the College Scorecard, many of our findings echoed those of other experts: we’d like some employment information and a side-by-side comparison tool would be nice, but overall the tool offers plenty of information about some important factors, including cost and borrowing, which makes it a great resource and jumping-off point for prospective college students and their families.

It’s also important to remember that the College Scorecard is not the end-all, be-all for selecting a school to attend, and it was not designed to be. As Scales mentioned, it’s not meant to be the only source of college specific information. Rather, it’s a way to drive the conversation between students and college personnel and focus on student success.

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The Numbers

Although women have made inroads in almost every academic discipline, some programs remain stratified. Women only make up 39% of MBA applicants (though they’re getting better), and they consistently lag behind when it comes to pursuing the male-dominated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Around 2.5 million women with degrees in STEM areas work in these industries, compared with 6.7 million men. Involvement in a women’s college might very well prove beneficial to closing up this egregious gender gap, and they are banding together and bulwarking themselves to ensure a future workforce battalion of veritable Rosie the Riveters.

Forty-seven American and Canadian institutions belong to the Women’s College Coalition. The organization represents roughly 85,769 students, 80,352 (93.7%) of them female. But their numbers have been declining alongside the inclining population of women on other campuses; in the 2004-2005 school year, 90,402 students opted for women’s colleges. That dip, however, doesn’t mean that these institutions are headed toward extinction. There are still plenty of reasons to explore women’s colleges as an option, particularly when it comes to honoring the objectives around which they were founded — lessening the gender gaps and ensuring the safest, healthiest, most supportive spaces where women can learn.

The Case for Women’s Colleges

Safety may propel some female students to pursue educational opportunities at women’s colleges. Although many of these institutions now controversially accept a few men, their curricula and main goals still revolve around meeting the unique needs of their female enrollees. An average of one rape per day happens on campus at traditionally and explicitly co-ed facilities, and 13% of female students are stalked at some point during the school year. Since 90% of incidents are perpetuated by people they know — most of them men — it isn’t as if they fear the stereotypical random boogeyman jumping out of the bushes. It makes sense that some women would gravitate towards environments that significantly lessen (though, sadly, not entirely eliminate) their risk of physical assault. Seventy-two percent of women’s college alumni report feeling safe on campus, compared with 64% at private and co-ed liberal arts institutions and only 37% at flagship state schools.

Women’s colleges launched primarily to close the gap between the number of men and woman on campus. Although more women now receive degrees than men, gulfs still exist in many degree plans, but women’s colleges already possess the know-how necessary to continue tackling inequality issues. October 2012 saw 24 promising female undergraduates (12 American, 12 international) receive scholarships to major in STEM fields, thanks to the NeXXt Scholar initiative. It wasn’t a coincidence that the eight schools selected to participate are ones that traditionally and explicitly cater to the needs of women students.

Similar programming exists to increase the number of women with MBA degrees as well. At Simmons College, for example, their School of Management specifically incorporates women’s issues into the syllabi. As a traditionally female-oriented campus, it understands the problems experienced by businesswomen once they enter the workforce – especially at the management and executive levels. Graduates exit the program with awareness of what they might witness upon launching their careers, making the challenges far easier to navigate. More opportunities to study in comparatively “customized” classrooms mean more opportunities for the ladies to start conquering higher and higher levels of the male-dominated corporate world.

Even beyond these obvious perks, graduates from traditionally women’s colleges have plenty of other reasons to consider them wholly viable options. Eighty-seven percent of graduates from these institutions complete their degrees in four or fewer years; compared with 79% of their counterparts at private, co-ed liberal arts schools and just 54% in flagship public universities. When it comes to broadening their perspectives and skill sets, they also maintain a significant lead, with 69% of all graduates participating in extracurricular activities and 74% involved with volunteer initiatives. Eighty-one percent leave feeling fully prepared for the work force. Perhaps most significantly, 72% declare themselves “completely satisfied” when it comes to the overall quality of their educational experiences – once again, more than their counterparts at other colleges and universities.

Those numbers cannot go ignored. Women’s colleges yield some incredibly successful results when it comes to producing happy, thriving, and well-rounded students. Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is a Wellesley alum, for example. To de-emphasize these schools in favor of traditionally co-educational campuses would be to deny female students opportunities that might work best for their personal and professional needs. Students autonomously decide which environment suits them snuggest, not vice-versa. If women’s colleges and female-majority co-ed schools were in fact interchangeable, the statistics would reflect this. Reality shows that the higher education sector possesses room for both female-majority schools and women’s colleges.

Changing With the Times

As with other higher ed institutions, women’s colleges succeed when they adapt themselves to new technologies and trends rather than stubbornly clinging to the obsolete. Schools participating in the NeXXt Scholars Program must especially embrace change. Without an openness to the very innovations that make the STEM fields what they are, female students hoping to narrow the disconcerting gender gulf will be denied the necessary training. Fortunately for them, these colleges don’t seem any more or less resistant than their co-ed contemporaries.

Such scholarship programs are helpful for aspiring students. Seventy-four percent of students who enroll in women’s colleges earn scholarships or grants, just under the 76% for private liberal arts schools. Although 93% report feeling their student loans proved well worth the investment, 68% applied in order to afford their educations; contrast this with 58% for liberal arts colleges and 43% for public schools. With such a price tag, many individuals exploring the possibility of attending women’s colleges might think themselves locked out, which makes scholarships and other educational advancements crucial.

One of the most recent examples involves, of course, the ubiquitous MOOC. Short for “massive online open course,” the amalgamation of Internet-based classrooms and opencourseware rocketed to prominence in 2012. Wellesley, best known as a liberal arts institution, garnered a fair amount of attention when it partnered with the edX initiative. This marked the very first time a traditionally women’s college decided to start offering MOOCs, and the first liberal arts school to work with edX. Such an unexpected, though welcome, move came about for the same reasons expressed by other institutes of higher learning. Because of mounting enrollment demands, Wellesley harnesses MOOCs to ensure students land spots in the most popular courses. This helps them save time by not falling behind on prerequisites and other classes that fill up quickly – and saving time means saving money as well. Seeing as how 68% of enrollees sought grants, scholarships, and loans afford their educations, any cost-cutting measures that could reflect in tuition prices would obviously be welcome.

“According to our Chief Information Officer, Ravishanker Ganesan, one of the most significant steps we’ve taken is to ‘establish a formal position, Director of Emerging Technologies, whose job it is to follow the emerging technology trends and bring them to the faculty to see what might work to support our curriculum,’” explains Anne Yu of Wellesley’s Communication and Public Affairs Team, regarding the school’s future adaptations. She notes that computer science stands as the 10th-most-popular major at Wellesley, so these changes greatly behoove their students and the very future of women in STEM alike. Other forward-thinking plans include “several interesting Digital Humanities projects,” a library that “follows leading edge trends involving the shift to electronic media,” “several faculty & students in the sciences who are doing advanced research using high performance computing clusters,” and the “Library and Technology Services team is also collaborating with faculty and students in Computer Science to jointly develop interesting Mobile Applications.”

Despite the mounting levels of female students receiving degrees at traditionally male-dominant institutions, women’s colleges ought not go dismissed. They still offer myriad benefits to enrollees, particularly when it comes to safety as well as opportunities in more gendered degree plans and career paths. With initiatives like NeXXt and the edX partnership, women’s colleges remain both relevant and entirely devoted to their original causes. And the greater sense of safety, community, and overarching satisfaction make cases for their survival, too. All of these qualities render them wholly valid options, especially for students hoping to dedicate their lives to shattering the glass ceiling and opening up even more chances for future generations.

How to Pick the Right One for You

The Women’s College Coalition fully outlines what students considering a single-sex or traditionally female campus should keep in mind while hunting for a school. Finding the right fit means looking at available degree plans, housing options, campus support structures (non-traditional student outreach, career counseling, tutoring, etc.), extracurricular opportunities, size, location, and numerous other factors. Those who prefer higher degrees of campus engagement and smaller class sizes might especially thrive in women’s college environments.

The following tips need to be kept in mind when researching women’s colleges:

• Think about your degree plan. Search which schools offer which programs, and the faculty (always research the faculty) specialties. Although many of the women’s colleges out there hold renown as liberal arts institutions, STEM is quickly expanding in popularity. If one of those fields sounds more appealing, find a school opening up about their efforts to provide more opportunities for women in science, technology, engineering, and math.
• Figure out your learning style. Factors like class size, co-educational campuses, access to online or blended options, opportunities to travel, accessibility, challenges, and more all filter into the college search. Working with a guidance counselor at your high school will help you discover which environments prove most conducive to your educational needs. And don’t be afraid to reach out to schools and ask questions. Admissions professionals, administrators, and maybe even some faculty members are willing to proffer advice and answer inquiries about what to expect in their classrooms.
• What appeals to you, personally, about women’s colleges? It might be the comparative safety. It might be the extracurricular activities. It might be the emphasis on closing the gender gap in STEM. It might be something else entirely. Women’s colleges are pretty unique, and appeal to certain academic desires. Before applying, explore the broad appeal of these institutions. Start looking for a more specific institutional fit after that. The Women’s College Coalition website provides some excellent resources for students considering the eponymous educational options.
• Get your financial aid in order. As stated previously, 68% of women’s college enrollees required scholarships, grants, and loans to fund their classes – more than their counterparts at any other type of school. Because of this, applicants seriously need to take their finances into consideration when choosing the right fit. Most pressing? Whether they want to tackle that debt after graduation. Even if everything about a school proves ideal, it might come to pass that for some students, the expenditures involved might not be realistic.
• Consider your extracurriculars. Women’s colleges report higher levels of extracurricular activities and campus engagement than any other school types. Some students might find this enticing, whereas others consider it a dealbreaker. Applicants falling in the former category must research what schools offer what activities outside the classroom. If everything else, including finances, works, would they be willing to make sacrifices for a school that may not offer what they want in terms of clubs, sports, etc.? This is especially important when it comes to networking opportunities for future careers, like organizations supporting women in STEM.
• Research campus support. Some students need tutors, mental health professionals, career counselors, and other support structures. Schools without these perks would be right out, so it’s best to check what all they offer ahead of time. The more Internet-savvy applicants out there might want to post on forums and social media asking current and former students about their experiences.

Female students may make up the majority of degree recipients these days, but that doesn’t women’s colleges should be dismissed as obsolete. Their objectives regarding equal footing for a traditionally marginalized demographic remain relevant, particularly when it comes to the STEM fields. But even for aspirant enrollees, these schools provide other excellent perks, like more engaged environments, increased safety, volunteer opportunities, and more. Different students require different things, so the relevance of women’s colleges remains the same as it ever was.

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